Late Show Vocab | Terry Gross

Summary

The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert

Episode: Late Show Vocab | Terry Gross
Date: May 16, 2026
Guest: Terry Gross (host of NPR’s Fresh Air)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Late Show Pod Show features Stephen Colbert and Becca diving into the quirky insider slang behind the scenes of The Late Show, followed by a rich, extended interview with the legendary NPR broadcaster, Terry Gross. The conversation explores the meaning behind certain Colbert traditions and phrases, and then moves to Gross’s remarkable 50-year radio career, her approach to interviewing, reflections on grief, creativity, and living a meaningful life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Late Show Vocab: Origins, Rituals, and Behind-the-Scenes Jargon

[02:17–13:07]

• The “Brass Ring”

  • Stephen explains the 19th-century phrase "go for the brass ring," referring to a now mostly extinct carousel game where riders would lean out for a bonus prize. Symbolizes taking risks for reward.
    • Colbert: "Will you dare as you go around to lean off your horse like a trick rider and reach out and grab that brass ring?" [02:45]
  • Becca expresses deep fondness for merry-go-rounds and shares a story of an artist who created a community carousel in NYC filled with children's doodle animals. Each kid who designed an animal has a lifetime pass to ride it. [04:16]

• The “Knack”

  • Stephen recounts an internal behind-the-scenes joke: Whenever reading the show band intros in rehearsal, he uses "the Knack" as a placeholder. The running gag began from a friend’s overconfident quiz answer long ago.
    • Colbert: "Every band to me, every band who's ever come on this show, in my mind, is the Knack." [10:29]
    • Recurring joke: They've never actually had The Knack as a guest. [10:31]

• “I’m Your Host, Stephen Colbert” vs. the Script

  • Stephen intentionally adds "your host" to his on-air introduction, even though the script always reads "I'm Stephen Colbert." It's a personal ritual, a way of claiming agency over the teleprompter and maintaining a sense of informal hospitality.
    • Colbert: "Comedy is essentially low rent... and there's something very little formal about, 'Welcome to the Late Show. I'm your host, Stephen Colbert.'" [11:10]
    • Stephen reflects that part of his process is knowing that on some level, he isn’t just reading the script, but improvising upon it.
    • Colbert: "I'm reading an impression of the script." [12:15]

2. Highlight: Terry Gross’s 50 Years in Broadcasting

[17:00–30:29]

• Longevity and Beginnings

  • Gross shares her journey from the University of Buffalo college station to Fresh Air’s national platform, facilitated by grant funding, especially from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
    • Gross: "When our show went from a local show to a national one, financially, it could not possibly have happened without a major grant from the CPB." [22:25]

• The Power and Intimacy of Radio

  • Gross discusses her childhood affinity for radio—her lifeline to the world outside a crowded Brooklyn apartment. She would listen at night, hiding her transistor radio under her pillow from her parents.
    • Gross: "The radio was the reach outside... So I put the transistor radio under my pillow at night." [18:35]

• Recognition and Early Host Stories

  • Gross recounts an embarrassing recognition moment at a car dealership during her early Fresh Air years.
    • Gross: "There's a lady on in the afternoon who's really annoying. And I said, oh, that would be me." [19:27]

• Colbert as a Frequent Guest, and Their Early Conversations

  • Gross reveals Colbert is among her most frequent Fresh Air guests. Their first interview included discussions of faith and the challenge of openness in public conversation.
    • Gross: "You are one of the most frequent guests on our show." [20:24]
    • Colbert: "That's how open you can be with someone... She set the table for me in an interesting way for every interview after that." [13:48]

• Creativity and Adversity

  • Gross shares a pattern: many artists/writers she interviews were sick or felt cooped up as children, which fostered creativity. But she cautions against viewing all hardship as a gift.
    • Gross: "I don't believe every problem is really a gift, you know... This cancer is making me a better person. No, I don't buy that." [21:14–21:53]

3. Loss, Grief, and the Role of Art

[23:11–30:29]

• Remembering Francis Davis

  • Gross’s husband, jazz critic Francis Davis, died recently. She discusses her decision to create a Fresh Air tribute episode for him, focusing on sharing his writing and love of jazz with listeners—and her process of grief.
    • Gross: "I wanted to share a piece of him... It was his sensibility, it was his language. I fell in love with his writing at about the same time. I fell in love with his writing first. And I fell in love with him." [24:54]

• Advice from Maurice Sendak

  • Gross recounts a powerful late-life interview with Maurice Sendak, who encouraged her (and listeners) to "live your life" despite grief.
    • Gross: "He ended the interview by saying, live your life. Live your life, Live your life. And I've repeated that to myself so many times over the years." [25:38]

• Types of Grief

  • Discussion of the difference between sudden, unexpected loss (Colbert’s childhood) and the slow attrition of illness (Gross’s husband). They agree that grief is individualized, but universally inescapable.
    • Colbert: “There's a commonality to it, which I think is unavoidable to eventually look at it. Grief is almost something that is outside of you and comes to you." [27:36–28:03]

• Visitation Dreams and Finding Meaning

  • Gross and Colbert both share profound dreams about their loved ones, unpacking the purpose these dreams serve in healing and re-contextualizing relationships after loss.
    • Gross: "I dreamt that he came back... did I chase him away by saying, you're not really here?" [28:03]
    • Colbert: "The messages that we get internally from our loved ones are ways for us to be aware of the world and how we feel about it..." [29:40]
    • Gross: "Do you think she was also telling you to live your life, to stay awake?" [30:15]
    • Colbert: "I'm grateful for that interpretation." [30:24]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Every band to me, every band who's ever come on this show, in my mind, is the Knack.”
  — Stephen Colbert [10:29]
• “Comedy is essentially low rent... I like the formality. There’s something very little formal about, 'Welcome to the Late Show, I’m your host, Stephen Colbert.'"
  — Stephen Colbert [11:10]
• "The radio was the reach outside... so I put the transistor radio under my pillow at night."
  — Terry Gross [18:35]
• “I don't believe every problem is really a gift, you know... This cancer is making me a better person. No, I don't buy that.”
  — Terry Gross [21:49–21:53]
• “He ended the interview by saying, live your life. Live your life, Live your life.”
  — Terry Gross (on Maurice Sendak) [25:38]
• “Feel what you're feeling and make the most of what you have.”
  — Terry Gross [26:43]
• “Grief is almost something that is outside of you and comes to you... you can decide whether to hold its hand.”
  — Stephen Colbert [27:36–28:03]
• “The messages that we get internally from our loved ones are ways for us to be aware of the world and how we feel about it.”
  — Stephen Colbert [29:44]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:17] — Colbert explains the “brass ring” phrase and nostalgia for carousels
• [06:20] — Becca introduces the “Late Show Vocab” game
• [10:29] — The story behind “the Knack” as a recurring band intro joke
• [11:10] — Colbert describes his scripted intro ritual
• [17:00] — Introduction of Terry Gross
• [18:35] — Terry describes falling in love with radio as a child
• [20:24] — Terry reveals Colbert as a frequent guest, their early Fresh Air interviews
• [21:49] — Terry reflects on adversity and creativity: “not every problem is a gift”
• [22:25] — Role of the CPB in Fresh Air’s success and sustaining public radio
• [23:25] — Terry recounts honoring her late husband on-air
• [25:38] — Maurice Sendak’s “live your life” message
• [27:36] — Grief as a universal, external force
• [28:03] — Terry and Colbert discuss dreams of lost loved ones and their meaning

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Tone and Final Reflections

The episode is warm, sincere, and lightly humorous. Stephen and Becca approach their “vocabulary” segment with playful nostalgia and curiosity. With Terry Gross, the conversation shifts to heartfelt storytelling and honest exploration of creativity, grief, and human resilience, peppered with mutual respect and wit.

For listeners: This episode offers an inside peek into The Late Show’s sense of tradition and humor, and a rare, moving conversation between two of broadcasting’s best interviewers about what really matters most in a long life and career—curiosity, connection, and living fully.

Transcript

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[Becca]

Hi Becca. Hi Steven. How's it going? You beat me this time.

[Stephen Colbert]

I did? Yeah. Yeah. You gotta go for that brass ring.

[Becca]

Yeah. Catch up on the podcast if you haven't tuned in this week and you'll

[Stephen Colbert]

be by the way, when I say go for the brass ring, do you know what that means?

[Becca]

I don't know what that means.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, that's interesting. Okay. But have you heard the term before? You gotta.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You gotta go for it?

[Becca]

I've heard you Say it.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah, you've heard me say it.

[Becca]

I've heard you say it.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, my God. I'm giving you 19th century entertainment references. Go for the brass ring or reach for the brass ring. Is that merry go rounds used to have an additional game. Oh, is that. You'd be on the merry go round, but on. There'd be a little arm on the outside of the merry go round on a post and there'd be a little. A little rack. And on the rack were a series of brass rings. And the rack had a little roll to it. So one, the brass rings would roll down. So one of them would be at the end of the little rack and you could stick your finger through it and pull it off. Off a little spring system. And then the other, the next brass ring would roll down. And it was. Will you dare as you go around to lean off your horse like a trick rider and reach out and grab that brass ring?

[Becca]

Oh, cool.

[Stephen Colbert]

So it's putting a little extra effort in taking a little risk. But what you get is the brass ring. And I think you could. I think it was sort of thing like you turned in the brass ring for like a kewpie doll or something like that. And you like, you reach for the brass ring so you could get your girl who's riding on the next horse over. You could get her, you know, that was it. Reach for the brass ring.

[Becca]

Why are they not around anymore? Too many.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Probably insurance, bloody noses or something.

[Stephen Colbert]

Probably insurance people fell off.

[Becca]

Do you know? I love merry go rounds. It's a big thing about me. I love. I love a good merry go round.

[Stephen Colbert]

Wow.

[Becca]

I have this idea that I'm trying to do where I'm trying to create. I'm not an influencer by any means, but I think it'd be a little bit.

[Stephen Colbert]

You're. By some means you're an influencer to

[Becca]

be a merry go round influencer. And the.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, you go, you go to merry

[Becca]

go round the world and merry go around the world and that. There's a lot of beautiful old merry go rounds around.

[Stephen Colbert]

There's one in Central, the nice one in Central park, the one in Brooklyn,

[Becca]

good one in Brooklyn. There's my favorite merry go round in the world is on West Riverside park up uptown. Much uptown. I did a tip to tip where I went from the top tip of Manhattan to the bottom tip. And I counted it by chance. But there was a.

[Stephen Colbert]

That must have been wild for you to just come around the corner and see a merry go round.

[Becca]

To see a merry go round But. And yet there she was. But this is an amazing story.

[Stephen Colbert]

Tell me about it. What do you love about it?

[Becca]

This artist in New York, I'm forgetting his name right now and I apologize for that. I'll pull it in the description. But he did a lot of art for Sesame street and he was asked by the city of New York to create a merry go round for this park that they were building. And he would go into public schools in Harlem and say, oh, we're going to make a merry go round together. You're going to doodle me. Your like dream merry go round animal that you want to ride. And so these little kids, like kindergarten, first grade drew these goofy little doodles of animals. Like, you know, those seeing like the way a kid draws a horse, it's just a glob with a smiley face on it. And then he created those perfectly to become Plexiglas sculptures that you can then ride. And then there's a little like the signature of the kid is like inscribed in the wood beneath it. And there's a little picture of what the original doodle was. And all the kids who got a merry go round creature on the merry go round has like a lifetime pass to write it whenever. It's so cool. I'll show you pictures later.

[Stephen Colbert]

How old is it?

[Becca]

It's from the 90s, I think. So it's not that old.

[Stephen Colbert]

These kids could be.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Have kids of their own.

[Becca]

Yeah, no, definitely. But it's a really beautiful thing and it's a great mix of, you know, art, you know, children of the city and the government coming together to make something fun.

[Stephen Colbert]

Do you know, like history of merry go rounds or anything like that. Like.

[Becca]

Well, I'm learning now. The brass ring I got now I. Now I know a little bit more, but I don't know that much of the history.

[Stephen Colbert]

Merry go round horses. Like sometimes you'll see them in an antique store or something. Just like an old merry go round horse with the pole still sticking through it. Like people use as like an end table or something like that. They often have a, like a frantic look on their faces. Like kind of like a scary, like eyes rolled back, like mouth open like horses like galloping for mad like that.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I wonder if there was ever a point.

[Stephen Colbert]

Sometimes they go up and down. Sometimes they go up and down and sometimes they don't.

[Becca]

Yeah. I like the up and down ones.

[Stephen Colbert]

The posting ones. The posting ones are nice.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah. But highly recommend that.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah.

[Becca]

That piece of. That piece of New York history. Go up to see the merry go round sometime. But anyways, we have a little game that we like to play here in the Late show pod show that I call lecho vocab.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yes.

[Becca]

Which is that Stephen and a lot of people on the show, we develop a shorthand. We have a lot of sayings that we are like sort of insider lingo that we say all the time. But then when I think about it, I'm not sure what some of it means. They have great backstories and I like asking Steven what they mean.

[Stephen Colbert]

And this today I hopefully I will know the meaning of this.

[Becca]

This is a phrase you say all the time. And I don't know the backstory of it or even really what it means. The knack. I know the band the knack, but

[Stephen Colbert]

the knack, obviously My Sharona being their big hit. I don't know why I started doing it here. But on when I'm reading the intros in rehearsal, I go through the entire script and some of it is quite meaningful. I have to understand what the setups are. Did I really understand the news story that we're making our jokes about that day? Does this punchline work? What's the order? There's a lot of decisions to be made about on the fly. And I'm giving notes on the fly and I'm asking questions and I'm hitting research. I'm asking graphics. I'm. I'm questioning what our take is like, is that really what we want to say? What's that about that joke. But then I have to read everything that's in the prompter just to make sure everything's properly in the prompter. And I have to read the guest intros. And when we get to the band, if there's a band, I tend to not say the name of the band. I tend to say, you know. Making their late night debut with the album last night, won two Grammys, you know. Please welcome the Knack. Because the knack were big when I was young. And so that's one reason. And another reason is when I was young and on tour with Second City, there was a guy named Scott Allman. And Scott Allman knew a lot about a lot of bands, a lot of obscure bands, but also just a lot of general bands. And we were doing like a newspaper quiz one day about like great hits of the 70s or something like that. I forgot what it was. And there was some really difficult trivia question as we were burn a lot of time in the van looking for a lot this is before the Internet friends. This is before cell phones friends.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

You know, so it was books and magazines and newspapers. And he was very confident that he had the answer to whoever what the answer of this band was. And he reached forward. He goes. He goes, no, wait. And he reaches his fist forward. Like, does that fist pump thing where you pull your fist down. Like you're like. You, like, clench it. He goes, the neck. And it could not have been not the knack more. It was like Stevie Wonder or somebody who wrote do I do you know the knack? And we made so much fun of his commitment. That it was the knack.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

That it never left me and the people. One person was in the car. Paul Danello, one of the producers here, he was in the car, the van, when that happened. And he could confirm this. I don't know if you ever do fact checking on these podcasts. He can confirm that's where the knack comes from.

[Becca]

Okay, cool. Great backstory.

[Stephen Colbert]

Best to you, Scott Allman, wherever you may roam these days. And he. Scott also had a really good way. He'd shut down anyone else's idea about what an answer for something would be. He would go, no, no, no. He had this very way of talking like this.

[Becca]

Oh, Chicago.

[Stephen Colbert]

No, Chicago. No, no, no. So he's like, no, no, no, I got it. The neck. And it was not the neck. And so in my mind, why waste my time saying, you know, cigaros, whatever. Like, whoever. The band. You know, Charlie xcx. No, the neck. Every band to me, every band who's ever come on this show, in my mind, is the knack.

[Becca]

Awesome. Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Except the knack. Who we've never had on.

[Becca]

Who we've never had on.

[Stephen Colbert]

And I don't think. I don't think they're all still with us, unfortunately. It's too bad.

[Becca]

Okay, great story. And you do that.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's an okay story.

[Becca]

You do that with. Well, this is a little bit different, but in the script, the writers are instructed to never write, I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. The script always says, I'm Stephen Colbert.

[Stephen Colbert]

Right.

[Becca]

Why is that?

[Stephen Colbert]

I don't know.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

But in the script.

[Becca]

But you always say in the script,

[Stephen Colbert]

in the prompter and on the script, I always said, welcome to the Late Show. I'm Stephen Colbert. And I think the very first night, maybe I wanted to welcome the Late show, I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. But it said, I'm Stephen Colbert. And after that, I was like, okay, I'll just say, I'm your host, Stephen Colbert, because I like the formality. I like something. So in a way, comedy is essentially low rent. And there's something very little formal about. Welcome to the Late Show. I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. And instead of I'm Stephen Colbert, I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. Much more like a maitre d. Like, I'm taking you to a nice table or something like that, or like, welcome to the party, that sort of thing.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Cause I think of it as, like, welcoming people to a party. And I don't know, I just. I get stuck in my head that certain things become ritual. And it's important to me that it never say, I'm your host, Stephen Colbert in the prompter. That it only say, I'm Stephen Colbert, and then I will add your host. And there's some. It's some handshake I have with the script that I don't have to say every word that's up there, and I don't have to say exactly the way that's in the prompter. And so that I start off the show knowing that I know something the audience doesn't know about me reading the script is that I'm not entirely reading the script. I'm reading an impression of the script.

[Becca]

Totally. Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that. I always love that.

[Stephen Colbert]

But it's funny. You picked up on. Have I said that out loud?

[Becca]

I. Well, I look at the script every single day. It's my job. And I also listen to the taping every single day. And I'm just. This does not match up.

[Stephen Colbert]

No, it never matches up.

[Becca]

There was one day when we did write I'm your host, Stephen Caberer, and you said, delete that. You said, they can't say that. I remember that really specifically. And I think you gave a similar reason to it, but not so in depth. But you were just like. I like to remind myself to add

[Stephen Colbert]

that it's up to me to not be a slave to the prompter. That, like, the prompter and I are having this conversation.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm not. It's not dictating it to me.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

I mean, largely. But not.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

We put a lot of thought into the words.

[Becca]

We do. We do. And you do. Especially more than anyone else.

[Stephen Colbert]

And then the important thing is to look like you haven't put a lot of thought in the words.

[Becca]

Yes, exactly. Keep it conversational.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's very important to say a lot of the script. Not looking at the camera.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

So it doesn't look like you're reading.

[Becca]

Yeah, yeah. And speaking of conversational hosts. You know who we have today on the podcast?

[Stephen Colbert]

John Oliver.

[Becca]

No. We have the amazing Terry Gross.

[Stephen Colbert]

Terry Gross. Not for the faint of heart to interview Terry Gross, because you will find yourself being interviewed by Terry Gross.

[Becca]

And she does do that to you.

[Stephen Colbert]

She does. She interviews me in the last few minutes of this, it becomes her interviewing me. Oh, Terry, the best.

[Becca]

She's so cool.

[Stephen Colbert]

She's so great. I admire her so much. And I enjoy. Like, first time I went on Terry Gross's show, Fresh Air, I was still at the Daily show, and I enjoyed the interview so much that I thought she kind of gave me the ability to be interviewed by being the first person to really interview me.

[Becca]

Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

Because I went, oh, that's a. That's how open you can be with someone. Or that's. That's. She. She set the table for me in an interesting way for every interview after that, because she interviewed one of the. She's one of the earliest in depth interviews that I did and that she took interest in me, even though as a correspondent, I didn't. I didn't have a project or anything. She just wanted to talk to me, which was fantastic. And, You know, when we first came over to do this show, we didn't really know how to do the show. And I thought, well, I'm definitely not gonna do Terry Gross until I know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and what I want to be saying and what my intention is and all that kind of stuff. I'm not gonna go talk to Terry now until I really figure it out. And so nine and a half years go by or something, and Evie and I put out our cookbook. Does this Taste Funny? It's still available. Yeah, go get it. And I said in the interview, and I said, now, Terry, I don't know if I've. I don't think I've been on your show since the show started, since the late show started. And she said, are you. Are you joking? I said, no, have I been on. She goes, you've been on three times before. And I guess what that says to me is that unlike the old show where it came out of the box exactly as I intended, and it kind of. We built on it, but it came kind of snapped together out of the box. This one. Even once we kind of knew what we wanted to do, it's always been changing. I've always been in a relationship with the show of wondering whether there's something else I could do. There's a different Way to interview somebody. Is there something else we could do in the second act? How should cold opens be? What's the handshake with the audience at the top of the monologue? How long should the monologue be? What's the mix of politics and other things? God, can we possibly get away from Washington today? All those conversations that there are, musical guests, comedy guests, variety guests, sketches, all these things. There's. Because this is really a variety show more than that other thing was a satire. There's a variety show. I've constantly been questioning its form.

[Becca]

Yeah, it's so.

[Stephen Colbert]

Or rather my part in the form and what I can add to it. And so it actually kind of seemed like me that I hadn't landed on it enough to go talk to Terry about it. And there's nothing to do with her or my enjoyment of her. I just, it just struck me at that moment, oh, I'm still in my mind nine and a half years in going, oh, what do I want this to be?

[Becca]

Yeah. And that's kind of beautiful. It's been a working progress the whole time, you know, so Terry, Terry. I love Terry. And she also, when she's interviewing someone, you know, she read the whole book, you know, you know, she watched the whole movie and she's talking to you.

[Stephen Colbert]

I know, it's infuriating.

[Becca]

All right, so this is Terry Gross. This is an extended interview with her.

[Stephen Colbert]

More extended than was on the thing.

[Becca]

More extended than was on the thing. Yeah. It's a great interview. You guys had a great time. So this is Terry Gross in her leather jacket on the Late Show POD Show.

[Stephen Colbert]

Thanks, Becca.

[Becca]

Thanks, Steven.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Welcome back to the late show, ladies and gentlemen. My next guest has been the award winning host of npr's fresh air for 50 years. Please welcome back to the late show, terry gross.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you.

[Stephen Colbert]

People excited about Terry Gross. Isn't that nice?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Terry, it's good to see you again.

[Terry Gross]

It's great to see you. I listen to your show all the time.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And I listen to your show all the time, too. You were 24 years old when you started hosting Fresh Air 50 years ago.

[Stephen Colbert]

There you are.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Fantastic. Do you, I'm asking, do you recommend doing a show for 50 years?

[Terry Gross]

Well, the good thing about it is longevity.

[Stephen Colbert]

Sure.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And I haven't had to move, you know, I've stayed in one place for the 50 years because the show moved. It went from a local show to a national show to more stations. Our staff has evolved over the years, different people. So many great people I've worked with.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So Always at whyy.

[Terry Gross]

I started at the NPR affiliate on the University of Buffalo station.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, wow.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So it was an affiliate right there.

[Terry Gross]

This is Buffalo, where I went to college.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I know, but right there in Buffalo.

[Stephen Colbert]

I mean, right on the college campus.

[Terry Gross]

That's where I started. Yeah, that's where I started.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, that's fantastic.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Did you always want to do radio? Did you always have an affiliation for it?

[Terry Gross]

I loved radio because, you know, I lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay. I don't hear any applause for Ship Sabay. And, you know, I had a small bedroom. It was small with me and my brother and my parents. And the radio was the reach outside. I didn't have a TV in my room, certainly didn't have a computer. They didn't exist yet. And so I put the transistor radio under my pillow at night. Not every night, but frequently. So I.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

To hide it from your parents?

[Terry Gross]

To hide it from my parents. Because it was like bedtime.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

What were you listening to?

[Terry Gross]

Well, rock and roll.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, yeah. Leather jacket. Leather. There you go.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Do you get recognized by your voice? Because, of course, I could pick you out in a minute.

[Terry Gross]

Only in embarrassing situations.

[Stephen Colbert]

Such as?

[Terry Gross]

Such as early on, when I started hosting Fresh Air, I needed to buy a car, and so I went to the Toyota place, and the salesman there said. And I had the radio on because I wanted to test the speakers. And he said, oh, there's a lady on in the afternoon who's really annoying. And I said, oh, that would be me. And he said, I'm never going to sell a car now. I ended up buying it from him. I mean, gave me a decent price. It was conveniently located.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah, exactly.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So approximately. I know you have to ballpark it. How many interviews have you done in the last 50 years?

[Terry Gross]

I'm told, I think that it's somewhere between like 15,000 or 18,000. I didn't count.

[Stephen Colbert]

Wow. Wow.

[Terry Gross]

And you, you are one of the most frequent guests on our show.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, really?

[Terry Gross]

Yes. Because we love you.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, well, I love being on. The first time I got to be on, I was still on the daily.

[Stephen Colbert]

I didn't even have my own.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That's right. I couldn't believe I got asked to do. I was so nervous and I had such a good time.

[Terry Gross]

And we talked about this day in God.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yes, we did. We talked about this day in God. Exactly.

[Terry Gross]

And your thoughts about the Catholic Church.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Church. And sort of the differentiation between the individuation of the American ideal and the homogeny of Catholic dogma.

[Terry Gross]

Yes. And you schooled me very well.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, what have you learned about people after 15,000 long conversations like that?

[Terry Gross]

A fair amount of artists and writers who I've interviewed were sick a lot during childhood and kind of cooped up at home. Were you.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Were you cooped up at home as a child?

[Terry Gross]

No, I felt cooped up, but I wasn't literally cooped up.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, okay.

[Terry Gross]

But I found that a lot of artists and writers, they're forced to stay home and they kind of busy themselves writing or watching a lot of TV and realizing, oh, I'd love to act, you know, and it's nice to know that because the worst things in your life can have a payoff sometimes if you're really lucky. Although I don't believe every problem is really a gift, you know, I don't buy that.

[Stephen Colbert]

You don't buy that?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. This cancer is making me a better person.

[Stephen Colbert]

No, I don't buy that either. I don't buy that either.

[Terry Gross]

I'm sorry I pounded your table.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I won't need it much longer now. In July.

[Terry Gross]

Sorry about that.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

In July, Republicans in Congress cut $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

[Stephen Colbert]

And on Monday.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

On Monday, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted to dissolve. And as someone who's worked in public radio for their whole career, what role did the CPB play in you starting this life?

[Terry Gross]

Huge. When I started at the college station, there was an NPR affiliate. At that time, you had to have, I think, like five full paid staff members in order to qualify for funding, because There are only five full time paid staff members. There were, like about 100 volunteers. And that's how I was able to get started as a volunteer. And on the other end, when our show went from a local show to a national one, financially, it could not possibly have happened without a major grant from the CPB to do all the things that we needed to do. And I think it was worth their investment. I mean, their show has endured. So, yeah, it wouldn't have happened. Thank you. It wouldn't have happened without the cpb.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I was so sorry to hear last April about the death of your husband.

[Terry Gross]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Francis Davis. And about two weeks later, you remembered him with a tribute on Fresh Air. Why did you choose to share that with the audience?

[Terry Gross]

A few reasons. One is that he had been a jazz contributor to our show. He'd been a jazz critic on our show, and it was local. And then for the first couple of months, maybe he was doing it on the national show until he felt like I'M not really a radio person. I'm really more of a writer. So it felt like he's still part of the Fresh Air family. But I also felt, while I was, like, in that really early stage of grieving, that before coming back, I had to explain what I had just been through. And also, I wanted to share a piece of him. So I did it. I didn't say, like, we had such a great love. Let me share some of our memories together. It was like, this is what he did. He was a music critic, mostly jazz. So I'm going to play some of the music that he loved and then read some of his writing that reveals something about the music that he loved. And that felt so right to me. And it also gave me not only an opportunity, but an excuse and a deadline to immerse myself in his writing. Some people find their loved ones in their clothes or, you know, special possessions. I find my husband in his books.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It can be hard to. It can be hard to look directly at your grief. And was that a way. Is that a lens through which it allowed you to look at your grief?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, and to look fully at him, because the writing really was him. He didn't write much personally, but it was him. It was his sensibility, it was his language. I fell in love with his writing at about the same time. I fell in love with his writing first. And I fell in love with him.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

In the 10 months since your husband passed, have there been any old interviews that have come back to you that you have turned to that have special meaning for you now?

[Terry Gross]

Yes. I interviewed Maurice Sendak close to the same time. I think, that you interviewed him. I think you went to his home. He was no longer mobile. He was no longer to get out of the house. So he had come out with his first children's book in years. And I thought. And I had been interviewing him since probably the late 1970s. And I thought, this is a good opportunity to call Maurice and basically just give him a shout and say, congratulations on the new book. But he ended up knowing that he was close to death and really wanting to talk. So he just started talking about how he had lost his brother, he lost his two best friends, but life was beautiful. He still had Bach to listen to. He still had the trees to look at out the window. And he'll be crying to the grave, you know, because he wanted to live longer, and it was just so beautiful. And he ended the interview by saying, live your life. Live your life, Live your life. And I've repeated that to myself so many times over the years, including when Francis died, because it was also a way of saying, keep living. You've had this terrible loss. You're still alive, so live it. Feel what you're feeling and make the most of what you have. And there was a great tape loop to have as opposed to. Oh, no. Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, you know, one of the.

[Terry Gross]

And, Stephen, I know you've. As a child, you lost your father and two brothers in a plane crash.

[Stephen Colbert]

I did, yes.

[Terry Gross]

And I've been thinking about the difference between sudden, unexpected, tragic death like that and my experience with my husband, going through, like, five years of watching him because he had emphysema and because he had Parkinson's. Watch him slowly just lose inch by inch, parts of himself and parts of his ability to live his life.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

People experience grief in many different ways.

[Stephen Colbert]

It affects their lives in different ways

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

at different times of their lives. How they approach it is so different for each person. There's a commonality to it, which I think is unavoidable to eventually look at it. That's all. Grief is almost something that is outside of you and comes to you. Like, people often use the phrase, like, there's an old phrase, like, visited by grief. And it's as if grief is something that comes and sits with you and you can decide whether to hold its hand.

[Terry Gross]

I literally felt like I had a visitation after he died. I don't know if you've had dreams like this, but I dreamt that he came back and we were walking into the bedroom together because it was bedtime. And I said to him, because I thought it was real. You know, I didn't realize I was dreaming. And I said to him, how am I talking to you? You're not here. And then he just vanished. Kind of like in a movie when somebody turns into a ghost and they kind of. There's a fade, and suddenly they're gone. And I thought, like, did I chase him away by saying, you're not really here?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I think that those dreams are not uncommon for people. I know many people have told me stories like that. I've had the same experience myself.

[Terry Gross]

You do? You do?

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

When my mother died, I remember having a very vivid dream. We were at union station in D.C. which is where I was born, where she had me, not in union station in D.C. and I walk there, and she's there, all my brothers and sisters. And there's my mother in her big winter jacket. And she turned around, there she was, the mother I remember my whole life. And I said, mom, you're alive. I must be dreaming.

[Stephen Colbert]

And she said, Oh, good.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Is the only way you'll stay awake. And that was it.

[Terry Gross]

Wow. How did you interpret that?

[Stephen Colbert]

That

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

the messages that we get internally from our loved ones are ways for us to be aware of the world and how we feel about it? Or that our dreams tell us things about ourselves that we cannot in waking life admit to ourselves?

[Terry Gross]

Right.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

We can feel things in our dreams. We can know things about ourselves that we can't know in waking life. And I don't mean prophetically or that there's some astral plane from where these messages come. We talk to ourselves in our dreams, and we wake up to certain feelings in our dreams. That's what I think it meant.

[Terry Gross]

Do you think she was also telling you to live your life, to stay awake?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I think that's a completely valid interpretation. 100%.

[Stephen Colbert]

As a matter of fact.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I'm grateful for that interpretation. Thank you.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, thank you. Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Terry, thank you so much.

[Terry Gross]

I'm so sorry that we shot anything so bad at the same level.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You can talk on the phone. New episodes of Fresh Air are on NPR every weekday. Terry Gross, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Late Show POD show with Stephen Colbert. Just one more thing. If you want to see more of me, come to The Late Show YouTube channel for more clip and explosives.

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[Ross]

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